Shingle oak

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Shingle oak fruit

Shingle oak leaves

Shingle oak staminate flowers

Shingle oak

Shingle oak staminate flowers

Shingle oak flowers

Shingle oak bark

Shingle oak buds

Shingle oak leaves

Shingle oak

Shingle oak pistillate flowers

Shingle oak pistillate flowers

Shingle oak fruit

Shingle oak bark

Shingle oak in autumn

Morphology

Trunk

Erect; bark grayish brown, furrows shallow, ridges long; wood brown, hard.

Twigs

Greenish brown to brown, rigid, glabrous or glabrate; leaf scars half-round; buds brown, ovoid, .12 to .24 inch, apex acute, scales often ciliate.

Leaves

Deciduous, alternate, simple; petiole .24 to .8 inch, glabrous; blade lanceolate to elliptic in outline, 3.2 to 8 inches long, .6 to 3 inches wide, base acute to rounded, margins entire, bristle-tipped only at apex, apex acute to obtuse, abaxial surface light green to brownish green, sparsely tomentose, adaxial surface dark green, shiny.

Flowers

Staminate catkins at base of new growth, 30-35-flowered, drooping, 2 to 3.2 inches; peduncle .2 to .8 inch; pistillate spikes axillary from new growth, 1-3-flowered; peduncle 0 to .28 inch. Flowers unisexual, more or less radially symmetric; staminate: sepals 2-6, connate, calyx lobes .04 inch; petals absent; stamens 2-4; pistillate: sepals 6, connate, calyx free from ovary; petals absent; pistil 1; styles 3.

Fruit

September and October; acorns, maturing in second year; peduncle elongating up to .3 inch; cup top-shaped, .2 to .35 inch long, .4 to .7 inch wide, enclosing 1/3 to 1/2 of nut, scale apices closely appressed; nut dark brown, ovoid to nearly globose, .5 to .6 inch, minutely pubescent; attachment scar .28 to .35 inch diameter; seed 1.

Ecology

Habitat

Upland woods, ravines, floodplains, stream banks, borders of prairies; moderately dry to moderately moist soils.

Distribution

East 1/4 of Kansas

Practical Information

Uses

Ornamental shade tree. The wood was used for shingles, furniture, lumber, firewood, and wagon spokes. Native Americans chewed the bark for mouth sores, steeped the bark and applied the liquid to chapped skin and took it for asthma. The leaves were wrapped around dough when making bread.

Additional Notes